Tyler Yazzie

Name: Tyler "Ty" Yazzie

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12th

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Wrestling, history, mythology, horticulture, flower arrangement, comic strips, hiking, camping, body modification

Appearance: Ty has a red-brown face with deep set brown eyes, a snub nose, and a square jawline dotted with a thin soul patch. There are two small, silver stud piercings under each side of his bottom lip, as well as a silver ball on each side of the bridge of his nose, a curved silver barbell piercing through his left eyebrow, and a series of five gold and black rings through the helix of each ear. His dark black hair is kept shaved into a short mohawk.

Ty stands at 5'10" and weighs 176 lbs. He has broad shoulders, long, toned, arms, and callused hands. His torso is well defined with lean muscle. His legs are tall and well-sculpted through exercise. Ty has a series of tattoos: on the back of each hand is a tattoo of a black circle with a jaggedly drawn letter "A" through the middle; over his right shoulder blade is a depiction of the "Calvin" character from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip peeing on a police badge and looking over his shoulder mischievously, and on his left breast there is a pair Star Sapphire and Blue Lantern rings, linked together by the bands. The Star Sapphire ring bears the initials "B.T.," while the Blue Lantern ring bears the initials "T.Y." Ethnically, he is Nigerian on his father's side, and Navajo/Swiss on his mother's.

On the day of the abduction, Ty was wearing a button-up, red and black flannel overshirt, an ill-fitting white t-shirt with a black and white tiger's head across the front, black jeans ripped across the knees, black and grey hiking shoes, and a thin, silver chain with a metal Blue Lantern Power Ring replica around his neck.

Biography: Amadia Okonkwo drifted into Kingman, Arizona in late 1981 and met Susan Yazzie in her father's pawnshop. He was thirty years old at the time, and desperate after twelve years of business and job failures since immigrating from Nigeria in 1969. Susan helped him find work and a place to stay out of sympathy. The two began dating over the next year and a half, and were wed in 1983. Amadia took Susan's last name in the ceremony, despite mild social stigma. His associated his name with his failures, and he viewed giving it away as an important step towards a new life. They were able to create a stable life in Kingman, with Susan operating a small floral shop and Amadia working as a teller for Wells Fargo. They would have seven boys: Obinze in 1986, Franklin in 1987, Marcus in 1988, twins Yetunde and Elan in 1990, Atsa in 1993, and their youngest, Tyler, in 1997.

Ty grew up within a pecking order with his older brothers. Obinze, the eldest and their father's favorite, was deeply affected by Amadia's jaded view of the world. Amadia's failures in business led him to see the world as predatory and unbalanced, and Obinze felt a great amount of pressure to both adjust to this worldview from a young age and prepare to overcome it to become the success his father was not. As such, Obinze expressed dominance over his brothers through teasing and harassment from an early age, while bringing them in on the act as a new sibling grew old enough to target. Individually, the acts Obinze committed and would teach his younger siblings to commit were small and mostly harmless, focused on rude jokes or small inconveniences like marker mustaches or hiding belongings. Many of the brother's came to look up to Obinze while they had each other to pick on. While this environment was not too damaging for most of his brothers at the start, it became problematic for Ty.

As Ty grew up, he became a natural recipient of his brothers' harassment, as the youngest child in the family. By the time he had turned six, his brothers had already begun playing small pranks on him and pushing against the boundaries of what they could get away with. The degree of harassment had escalated slowly over the years, so his parents rarely noticed how poor the brothers treated each other. They tended to dismiss any tension as a natural conflict between young boys. Without intervention, the pranks began to grow from hiding his belongings, to blaming him for accidents and messes, to occasional fights. Nearly all of Ty's brothers participated in these pranks to some degree, though the most common instigators were Obinze, Yetunde, and Marcus. While Obinze felt too old, at seventeen, to act against Ty directly, he would encourage his younger siblings and displayed amusement at their antics as long as their parents weren't around. Marcus, at fifteen, was the most direct sibling. He rarely acted on his own, but enjoyed the approval and would often carry out prank ideas for Obinze or Yetunde. The most common aggressor was Yetunde. At thirteen, he and his brother Elan were the oldest brothers frequently in the house, and while Elan generally saw the teasing as more friendly and fun, Yetunde envied Obinze's position as their father's favorite and sought to emulate him as much as possible. He was the most aggressive and malicious of the brothers, and frequently pushed far enough for their parents to intervene and reprimand him.

This environment caused Ty to become distrustful of others, and he had difficulty making friends in his early school years. While he was obedient to his teachers, they often found him disruptive during free periods and interactions with other students. Frequent shouting matches with other students often led to destroyed or disrupted toys and artwork before teachers were able to intervene, though he rarely hit or attempted to hurt those around him. Ty received verbal reprimands, time-outs, and temporary restriction from whatever the class might be doing until he apologized, and his teachers handled his behavior with resigned frustration. Many of them had either previously dealt with his disruptive brothers, so he was considered a problem child to be contained until he grew out of his issues. Reports of his actions that day became a regular part of the classroom check-out routine.

This did not go unnoticed by his parents, and he received a few passing lectures on respecting the property of others. As long as his outbursts did not grow too excessive or violent, however, his parents were willing to dismiss them under the same logic that justified his brothers' actions. Seeing Ty acting out fit neatly into the narrative they had developed by observing their sons over the years that it was natural for young boys to clash and pick at each other, and they felt no need to intervene unless things grew physically violent.

As Ty grew up, he also grew closer with his older brother Atsa. Atsa was often withdrawn and distant towards the rest of the household, preferring to read and spend time alone whenever possible. Ty hid with Atsa whenever possible, and found his parents more likely to intervene and send his brothers away when they were together. While Atsa was detached from most of the family, he and Ty grew very close, and reinforced each other's interest in reading. Atsa gravitated towards crime fiction, while Ty enjoyed fantasy. In particular, he was drawn to retellings of mythology, such as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. As Ty's ability to read and think critically grew with his age, he delved deeper and deeper into mythological accounts, favoring Egyptian, Navajo, and Igbo narratives. This started with enjoying Rick Riordan's second series, The Kane Chronicles. The Egyptian setting and basis for these novels piqued Ty's further interest in mythology. As he matured, the grand scale of ancient mythology appealed to his growing curiosity about the world, while gods and godlike heroes became a form of escapism. Egyptian mythology suited him more than the Greek setting of Riordan's first series, due to it seeing overall more just and ordered than the relative chaos of Greek mythology's warring, jealous gods.

Ty also grew curious about the mythology of his ancestors. By questioning his parents and researching online, Ty learned about Navajo and Igbo heritage, and the rich history and mythology that came with each. They made him feel like he was part of something large and important, especially given that many of his brothers were largely uninterested in their culture. His parents responded positively to his interest, passing on whatever resources they could find or remember from their childhood to him. Over the years to follow, Ty would learn as much as he could about the history and mythology of the Navajo and Igbo people, as well as learning to read, write, and speak Igbo from his father.

Ty was also interested in the many comic strips that his father had collected over the years. There were a few small collections in the family library, with Ty favoring works such as Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. The simple art styles paired with humor and self-reflection appealed to him. They also represented escapism for him, though in a more grounded and thoughtful way than mythological tales. Characters like Charlie Brown and Calvin struggling through their own emotions and young crises in comical ways helped him feel more normal and forget the anger that often permeated his life around his brothers.

As he grew older, Ty came to understand Atsa's issues through their parents. While his symptoms were not severe enough for him to be considered medically autistic, he was diagnosed with a developmental disorder that came with social and communications challenges. All of the siblings understood Atsa's condition to some degree. Their parents felt that the tension that came naturally to his brothers might be stressful for him, and enforced his privacy and peace strictly. Ty also strove to meet his older brother's needs, both by interacting with him in ways he was comfortable with, and patiently working through his communication issues. Atsa became Ty's closest friend while he was growing up, while Ty gave Atsa someone who would at least attempt to understand him, no matter how long or difficult the process became.

Over the next few years, many of Ty's brothers left home. Obinze moved into his own apartment in early 2005, after foregoing college and living at home until the age of nineteen. Franklin moved on to pursue an accounting degree at Northern Arizona University during the same year. Elan began to focus more and more on his studies, to seek an engineering degree. Over the years, he had grown more uncomfortable with the environment his brothers created, and attempted to distance himself from it. He avoided engaging with the harassment and would involve their parents if he felt things were out of hand. However, unless the situation turned physically violent, these reports were often ignored and dismissed. While Elan's reports were believed, Yetunde and Marcus had both adopted this form of emotional baiting as their primary form of harassment, and this complicated the situation in their parents eyes. Their parents felt that Ty's reactions were his own responsibility, and his brothers only received mild warnings to mind his temper.

Yetunde, in particular, was skilled at working around his parents' objections and finding the easiest, most innocuous ways to trigger Ty's temper. He used this period to slip into the space Obinze's absence left, fueling most of Ty's outbursts and serving as the source for most of his harassment. He grew frustrated, both at Elan's distance and the fact none of his brothers looked to him for guidance or approval the same way they had Obinze growing up, and used this frustration to hone his efforts and avoid standing out to their parents.

Notably, Marcus withdrew from school during his senior year. His grades had been plummeting since the beginning of high school, and as soon as he was legally able to withdraw on his own accord, he did. He felt that school was a waste of time, and had trouble keeping focus or motivation going. This was a point of argument between Marcus and their parents for many months, but as much as they disapproved of his decision, they would not force him to leave, so he remained at home. Though he planned to seek employment to assist with the household needs, his lack of education and patience quickly became a sticking point, and on the occasions he was able to secure a job, he rarely kept it for more than a few months. Marcus was an infrequent aggressor during this period, he began to spend more time isolated from the family, either by being at work, walking alone around their Kingman neighborhood or spending long hours in his room without contact. His temper contributed to his difficulties with holding a job, and often caused friction within the workplace. While he still refrained from violence with his co-workers, he was prone to shouting matches when his patience wore thin, which frequently led to his dismissal. Each failure led to a growing sense of ineptitude, especially since all of his other brothers were either at least adequate in school, stably employed, or both. His frustrations with this sense of ineptitude contributed to his withdrawal from the family, and eventually left Yetunde as Ty's only antagonist.

Ty paid little attention to the changes in his environment at the time. At ten years old, Ty began splitting the bulk of his time at home between reading with Atsa and tending the garden with his mother. Ty's brothers rarely ventured into the garden, for fear of ruining their mother's carefully tended plants, so it provided safety and solitude. At first, he grudgingly assisted with the garden's upkeep, but over time he grew to love caring for the flowers his mother tended. Ty developed a keen interest in horticulture and flower arrangement during elementary school, though he kept this interest hidden from everyone but his mother. He felt that his brothers, and the other students at school, would only use it as another source of teasing and aggression, especially if they learned he enjoyed it. He displayed an attitude of begrudged acceptance towards the garden whenever his brothers were at home, and it was always framed as a favor to his mother. While there was still some level of teasing due to his long hours spent with the plants, he felt it was not nearly as bad as it would be if he openly acknowledged the joy it brought him. This teasing was worth it, however, to be closer to his mother and the peace of her garden. Many of their deeper conversations regarding his Navajo heritage occurred in the garden, which gave him pleasant associations with the space aside from the safety it provided from his brothers.

On top of this, the beauty, calmness, and long-delayed rewards of horticulture gave him personal fulfillment he wasn't getting elsewhere. Horticulture and flower arrangement became his first outlets for success and allowed him to express a more tender, patient, and cautious side of himself that was normally difficult to let out. Between the company of his mother and the safe isolation, however, he was able to let this side of his personality flourish and come to appreciate every aspect of gardening, allowing it to grow into a treasured passion over the next few years.

Ty's anger issues grew worse in middle school. When teased, looked down upon, or simply annoyed or frustrated, Ty had a tendency to lash out verbally and physically, which gave him a reputation as a bully that would follow him into high school. Ty used school and other students as a venting mechanism for his feelings of helplessness at home, as none of them held the same power or control over him as his brothers did. He felt he could stand up for himself there, but couldn't control his reflexive anger and often started verbal or even physical conflicts. Ty's encounters often turned briefly violent with shoving and shouting matches. Ty felt guilty about these outbursts, especially when he hurt someone else, To further complicate things, similarly unstable students and bullies gravitated towards his temper and enjoyed provoking him, though these encounters were typically disrupted by teachers or other students before they could escalate. Ty's temper was well known among the faculty, and he received frequent verbal reprimands and detentions. On one occasion, a student managed to successfully provoke him into a fight without any teaching staff nearby to stop it before it began, and while the fight ended without serious injuries to either boy before staff intervened, both were suspended from school for three days.

The suspension worried his parents, and they finally decided to intervene more firmly. In an effort to both curtail his aggression and spend more time with his last son, Amadia began to spend more time with Ty and attempt to channel his anger into more constructive outlets, with mixed results. To that end, he felt it would be useful for Ty to have a physical outlet to express his pent-up energy in a safe context, where his anger could be curtailed if he grew out of hand. Ty became involved with his middle school wrestling program, and the structure of the event made him calmer and more focused, as well as allowing him to focus his energy on improving his body. Wrestling proved to be one of the few situations where Ty could fully appreciate authority and structure. While he was initially distrustful of the standards set forth in practice and competition, their rigid nature made him more appreciative over time, with no perceived preferential treatment or undue unwritten rules. He believed that as long as he applied himself both in and out of the ring to be the best he could in his weight class, his efforts would always be rewarded by a system he could understand and participate in. In his mind, wrestling had clearly defined standards for success that he could achieve through hard work and dedication, and he found this appealing compared to the struggles he had with school and social endeavors that were harder to grasp. While teachers, authority figures, students, and other residents of Kingman might look down on him for his reputation or judge differently due to preconceptions, the only thing that mattered in the ring was his raw performance, and he grew to value that rigid objectivity. With the support of his coach and fellow wrestlers, he stopped getting into fights at school. He researched and committed himself to a strict exercise regime, cutting some time away from Atsa and his mother to accommodate his new lifestyle. He also attempted to adopt an affordable version of a wrestling dietary schematic he found online, focusing on cheaper fruits, protein, and fiber.

Along with wrestling, Amadia would occasionally take Ty camping, teaching him about the wildlife of Arizona. They would spend a weekend every couple of months together, hiking, camping, and occasionally attempting to fish or forage for food. They were rarely injured beyond their pride, but the excursions led to many encounters with both poison ivy and poison oak, as well as moderate stomach illnesses from eating unripened spiny hackberries. Ty never mastered things like fishing, tracking animals, or identify fruits, herbs, and roots, but he has a competent sense of terrain and is capable of navigating using the position of the sun and stars. Hiking added to Ty's physical conditioning, giving him greater endurance and an affinity for the outdoors. These excursions also allowed the two of them to bond even deeper. In the same way that Ty's Navajo heritage became largely tied to his mother's garden, his Igbo heritage became associated with the wilds of Arizona. Ty would listen to his father's stories about their people, and about his own life, as they hiked through the wilderness, often speaking back and forth in nothing but Igbo for hours once Ty grew fluent enough. The exertion and lack of convenience that came with them was an initial source of frustration, but over the years he grew used to the conditions, and the scenery was often enthralling in the same way his mother's garden was, though on a grander and more random scale. This, combined with the closeness with his father, caused him to value the trips they took together highly.

Amadia's influence also made Ty more cynical on his way into high school. He began to pass on his views on politics and social issues much in the same way he had to Obinze, and while they did not impact Ty as strongly, he found himself drawn to causes of nihilism and anarchy out of dissatisfaction with society. He developed a worldview that all ordered systems of society are fundamentally about individuals with power oppressing individuals without it, and that nothing could change that relationship. Much of this was driven by his more adult understanding of the history of oppression and abuse both the Navajo and the Igbo cultures he had grown so close to growing up. This led him to research cultural oppression in other nations and ethnic backgrounds, with disheartening results. Studying the history of cultural diaspora, genocide, slavery, and manipulation in, as far as he could tell, every major power that had ever existed, quickly jaded him towards authority. It left him feeling that no one was truly fit to rule or govern anyone else, and anyone who wished to was either ignorant or exploitative.

Amadia's reaction to this worldview varied wildly depending on his mood, but for the most part he allowed Ty to draw his own conclusions. Ty most closely identified with existential anarchism and nihilism, believing that life and authority have no inherent meaning or source of justification but what is projected on to them. He found inspiration in the works of Franz Kafka and Otto Gross, especially in their critiques on the authoritarian nature of family and social connections. He did not believe that anarchism and nihilism held solutions to the problems with traditional power structures, but felt they were better than supporting systems that were hypocritical and predatory.

Shortly after turning sixteen in February of 2013, Ty began working at the family floral shop. He had been working in the garden with his mother for so long that he was essentially an employee already, but given that he was old enough to be legally considered as such without hours restrictions in the state of Arizona, it seemed only fitting to bring him into the shop officially. This allowed Ty to expand his responsibilities from tending the garden and assisting in arrangements to actively taking orders and interacting with customers. His interactions were generally short and to the point at first, but he developed rapport with regular customers as he grew more comfortable. Over time, Ty grew almost as attached to the shop as he was to the garden itself.

Near the end of the summer of 2013, Marcus was arrested for attempting to rob a gas station, and shooting an attendant in the arm during his panicked escape. He was later surrounded while hiding at a friend's apartment. The official state testimony claimed officers believed he was armed and that he attempted to flee the scene, resulting in officers taking him down violently and fracturing his jaw. Witnesses on site later told local news organizations that Marcus surrendered peacefully and was injured during an unnecessarily forceful arrest, due to the belief that he was armed and dangerous. The gun used in the robbery was later found in a McDonalds dumpster, five miles from the apartment. The controversy died quietly when the defense entered a guilty plea to charges of aggravated assault and armed robbery. He was sentenced to twelve years in FCI, Tuscon.

The robbery became a source of school gossip with some students, causing Ty's distrust to flair. He came to believe that every odd glance and whispered word as he walked by had to be about Marcus's arrest, and how it reflected on him. When provoked, he would respond aggressively, though his years working with his father and with the wrestling team gave him enough restraint to know when to check his violent impulses and leave before things turned physical. Near the end of the year, however, Ty isolated himself from the school and rarely responded to the presence of anyone but close friends and family members. Marcus's arrest had caused him to reflect on his own choices, as well as those of his other family members, and left him confused and frustrated. His outbursts and threats became more rare, and less passionate, as he began to explore his own identity, particularly the implications of the existentialism he supported. Along the vein of believing that life and structure have no meaning beyond what you place on them, Ty began to examine the meaning he had placed on his own life, and the sort of person he was. He saw too many of the same traits he despised in his brothers within himself, and became disgusted with his anger. However, he found no way to change how he felt.

As a consequence of the controversy around Marcus's arrest, Ty's feelings of repression and sympathies for anarchy shifted towards the abuse of minority figures by law enforcement. At first, Ty was distrustful of eye witness accounts, and was inclined to believe that Marcus acted exactly as the police stated, as it aligned with the negative, oppressive image of his brother he had cultivated over the years. He did not visit Marcus in the period leading up to his trial, but out of morbid curiosity he chose to attend Marcus's sentencing. Seeing his brother hunched over a desk in the courtroom, his jaw wired shut and his eyes cast downward, conflicted with the picture of Marcus he had constructed over the years, and caused him to doubt his assumptions. Following the trial, Ty spent a great deal of time researching both Marcus's arrest and the racially charged history of police brutality, causing his anger to bloom into distrust towards law enforcement and the justice system, viewing them as the ultimate expressions of why traditional power structures inevitably fail and harm those within them.

During this period of introspection, with parental permission and savings from working at his mother's floral shop, Ty delved into body modification and art. Between October 2013 and July 2014, he received three tattoos and numerous facial piercings, as well as shaving his hair down into a thin mohawk. Body modification struck Ty as a physical manifestation of the sort of shift in identity that he wanted within himself, a way to change who he was and how he was perceived as well as further individualizing himself from his brothers and his parents. While Amadia did not have much opinion on his son's choices, Susan was supportive of Ty's search for identity and agreed to oversee his tattoo appointments. Initially, Ty had three tattoos inked: A symbol of anarchy on the back of each hand, to represent his renewed commitment to the ideal following his brother's arrest, and the iconic image of his favorite comic character, Calvin, urinating on a generically designed police badge placed over his right shoulder blade, positioned so that it will always be covered when he is clothed, even in his wrestling gear. In his mind, this tattoo represents a small step towards taking back independence from the corruption and control of law enforcement, as a symbol that he is not afraid of the system and will not ignore or abide its excesses. The placement was decided by his mother, to try and prevent as much potential trouble as possible. While she initially objected to the tattoo in general, Ty's passionate and well researched dislike of the law enforcement system and his willingness to compromise on its visibility eventually won her over, on the grounds that it is ultimately his decision, and his responsibility to deal with any consequences.

In the summer of 2014, Ty began a close relationship with Bernadette Thomas, a fellow student at Cochise High. They had often clashed in the past over his aggressive tendencies, as she had a strong presence in the school anti-bullying committee. In a moment of shared vulnerability due to her illness and his crisis of identity, however, they grew to understand each other better and became friends. Between her influence, his mother's, and his growing dissatisfaction and distrust of the reactive, bitter lifestyle he had been leading, he became a much more calm individual. Throughout the latter half of 2014, Ty attempted to forgive many of his brothers and reconnect with them, as well as find those he had hurt with his actions in the past and apologize. This has been a great struggle, given his temperament, and he is often unsuccessful, but he continues to work on his anger and attempts not to lash out at others whenever possible. The changes in his personality as well as their closer friendship caused romantic feelings to grow between him and Bernadette, and they began dating in late fall, 2014.

In recent months, Ty has been trying to bring his family back together and reconnect with his brothers with varying levels of success. He sees Franklin often, as he lives only a few hours away, and makes frequent visits home. Franklin, like Ty, has become concerned for their family as they scatter and his parents grow older, and supports Ty's efforts to try and hold them together. He has become a successful accountant and lives frugally, sending home what money he can to try and support both his parents and his siblings when they are in need. Of all his brothers, Franklin blames himself for Marcus's arrest the most, and feels a great deal of guilt for not being a more present role model.

Similarly, Ty and Elan have a casually friendly relationship, though they see each other quite rarely. Elan works as an engineer for Boeing, and frequently sends money home to support bills and his parents growing healthcare needs. However, he moved from Kingman to St. Louis, Missouri, to pursue his career with Boeing, and rarely has time to visit or call home. He occasionally apologizes for his brothers actions to Ty growing up, but downplays his own role and justifies himself by claiming to misunderstand how unhappy it made him.

Ty and Atsa live together closely at home, as the last of the Yazzie sons to stay with their parents. Atsa has claimed to be seeking a gap year to look at colleges and decide his future for the past three years. In truth, the idea of leaving home and his brother fills him with anxiety, and he has no desire to pursue college or move out on his home. Atsa often asks about Ty's plans for the future, in hope that he will stay with him as well.

Yetunde cut off communication with the family shortly after being accepted into Stanford's Graduate Psychology program, with an emphasis on neuroscience. Ty has brief contact with him through Elan, but even his twin rarely hears from Yetunde at present. He is currently engaged in a a fellowship through the college while pursuing his doctorate, and on track to graduate near the top of his class.

Ty attempts to visit Marcus at least once a month in Tucson. He has come to pity Marcus, and wishes to help him find his feet once he has been released from prison. Someday, he hopes Marcus will explain his actions to him, if only to better understand how he got here. Marcus has remained largely silent on the issue, but has done a great deal to better himself while in prison. He is currently pursuing his GED, and hopes to have accrued some college credit before finishing his sentence. Ty has grown even more defensive of his brother over the past year, and is proud of his relationship with him. He feels that Marcus is trying to become a better man, and uses him as a frequent talking point when he is discussing the excesses of corrupt law enforcement and his anarchist views in general. This can cause friction with students who still view his brother as nothing more than a violent criminal, and is the easiest way to provoke Ty's temper at this point in his life.

Obinze remains a strained figure in his life. He still lives in his own apartment in Kingman, and works as a manager of a small grocery store. The success of his brothers, as well as his status as the only son to move on and still remain in Kingman, seems to bother him a great deal, and he turns to mocking Ty to reinforce his sense of dominance. To cope, Ty considers himself the adult in the situation, putting up with Obinze's hostility for the good of the family.

Ty has a distant relationship with his father. Over the years, Amadia has grown lethargic and tired, and rarely speaks when he is home. They still camp together, on rare occasions, but he does not have the energy to hike and travel like they used to, or work up the anger to share his old opinions. Ty's relationship with Bernadette has been a source of quiet discomfort and anxiety between them, though he is unable to get Amadia to elaborate as to why. Amadia is conflicted on her presence overall, due to the fact that Ty is his only son currently within a stable romantic relationship. As glad as he is to see one of them happy, he fears that Bernadette is making Ty weak and softening him to the realities of the world, due to her idealism and perceived lack of experience with adversity and disappointment. He does not know of her, or her mother's, illness, due to Bernadette's desire to keep the issue private and Ty's respect for that desire. Due to his advanced age and health, combined with his overall jaded point of view, he does not question her frequent days at home, and privately views her as fragile at best, and lazy at worst. He withholds these views from Ty, however, as he feels voicing them will only bring conflict and cause him to cling more stubbornly to her out of defiance.

Susan and Ty remain close, and she has slowly prompted Ty towards sharing his love of horticulture and using it as the basis for a career. She has been very supportive of his efforts to bring the family together, and of his relationship with Bernadette. In early 2015, her weight and capacity for memory began to fluctuate at concerning levels, and the family fears that she may be developing some form of dementia, though this has yet to be confirmed.

Ty and Bernadette enjoy an expressive relationship. He has grown very protective of her, due to her illness, but also admires and respects her for her strength in attempting to cope with it alone and refusing to be beaten. She serves as a source of inspiration in his life, pushing at his boundaries and helping him slowly make the changes within himself that he began to desire after Marcus's arrest. She has become involved with his family, and while there is tension between the two of them and Amadia, Susan is very fond of her company, and Atsa has come to accept and expect her presence in their lives.

Their relationship has become symbolized by a pair of Lantern rings from the popular comic series. Initially, Ty purchased a Star Sapphire replica ring for Bernadette as part of a care package for her next extended period of bed rest and relaxation, without knowledge of the character or the themes and history beyond Bernadette's attachment to it. The symbolism of the ring drew them closer together, however, and shortly afterwards she purchased a Blue Lantern ring for him as well. They each wear their rings on chains around their necks daily, and Ty has come to hold onto his as a physical tick whenever he is making an important decision or struggling with negative emotions. Unbeknownst to Bernadette, he has recently tattooed images of their rings, with interlocked, initialed bands, over the left side of his chest.

Ty is a prominent member of the Cochise wrestling team, regularly performing well in state competitions in the 180 lbs. weight class. While he is not the best wrestler in his class, he is dedicated to improving, and still spends much of his time exercising and preparing himself for competition. Many of his close friends are through the wrestling program, and he is loyal to nearly anyone who has worked alongside him in it.

Academically, Ty is an average-to-poor student, often seeking tutors in areas such as math, science, and English. While Ty is a competent reader, he has difficulty expressing his thoughts and opinions on complex subjects both orally and in writing, and he struggles with math beyond basic algebra. However, he performs decently in geography, and excels at both history and physical education. Ty has a passion for history that stems from his love of mythology and culture, and has little difficulty remember and reciting facts, dates, and locations. He has a tendency to structure his perspective and opinions through the lens of historical observation, trying to take as broad an image as he can and separate it into layers and time periods to dissect one at a time. His primary limit in school is both a lack of interest and academic building blocks, due to his struggles with focus and disruptive behavior during his early school years. While he makes token efforts to make up for his shortcomings with tutors and studying, he lacks motivation and doesn't feel there is much point to addressing his shortcomings. He mainly continues to pursue high school and his degree to please his parents, who fear the idea of him dropping or failing out of school after Marcus's example. He is content to work towards passing grades, but will not put in effort beyond that unless the subject interests him.

Despite becoming an overall calmer individual, Ty is still rebellious and anarchic. He still does not trust authority or traditional social structures, and believes people work best alone or in small groups. He avoids authority figures whenever possible, and is no stranger to detention due to his personality. At school, this can lead to conflicts not only with teachers, but with some of the more firm and authoritative students. While he is not as aggressive as he used to be, Ty still finds such students completely insufferable, due to their tacit support of a flawed system and what he perceives as an over-inflated sense of importance. Outside of the wrestling team, Ty tends to gravitate towards similarly rebellious individuals, as well as other members of the school's athletics team.

His dislike of authority compounds outside of the school. Ty has a distinct dislike for political figures and does not trust the police, especially after his brother's arrest. Despite their differences in the past, Ty is curious as to why his brother turned to robbery and believes someone else must have influenced him towards violence, projecting the relationship he perceived between Marcus and Obinze and Yetunde. Between his personal experiences with the law and growing social movements against law enforcement and the justice system at large in the United States, Ty has developed a very cynical point of view towards established authority. In his opinion, law enforcement as a systemic structure does not have the personal connection or interest necessary to truly serve and protect a community, therefore it cannot be trusted to look out for safety and interest of the individual. The emotions attached to this rebelliousness have cooled somewhat over the last year and a half, however, and Ty now views his rebellion as something more akin to a moral imperative than a caustic, emotional response.

For leisure, Ty still defaults to reading, hiking, and gardening. He is a devout student of history and tries to read as many viewpoints as possible. While he has not found a particular time period to focus on yet, he focuses on American history, particularly Native American oral tradition prior to European colonization, and the early formation of the United States as a constitutional republic. He continues to pursue mythology as a hobby, and has become particularly receptive to the works of Thomas King and his beliefs on the effects of mythology on societal structure. Ty believes that by studying history, mythology, and culture, he may one day find some personal solution to the inescapable repression of traditional power structures, and that he may contribute to the overall freedom from them in his lifetime.

On a less serious note, he still keeps several collections of comic strips in his small personal library, and reads them from time to time when he needs cheering up. The lack of laws and expectations in the serial world they depict is refreshing to him, and he finds certain art styles endearing. Calvin and Hobbes remains his favorite series, and he has many posters and pieces of artwork from the series on the walls in his room.

While Ty does not hike or camp with his father often as they used to, he still pursues the hobby on his own from time to time, and tries to spend a large amount of time outdoors. He appreciates the solitude of nature, and he has a fondness for plants due to his time gardening. He has grown only marginally better at identifying flora at a glance in the wild, but he appreciates the wild, untamed beauty the natural aesthetic provides almost as much as he does the cultivated pristineness of his family's garden.

Ty is no longer ashamed of his interest in flower arrangement, and while he does not overtly share his passion, he is not embarrassed when others discover it and he does not attempt to hide it like he used to. He works full-time at his mother's floral shop and has taken over much of its day to day management while she deals with the administrative side of the business, though he does try to check her records each week out of concern for her health and state of mind. His mother remains a decently competent administrator, though her records often contain minor errors he has to fix to the best of his ability. He has even entered in a few minor competitions in the area, and while he has not come close to winning, he has received favorable compliments from judges and other competitors, and hopes to do even better in the future.

Ty has few ambitions at present. He is content to graduate high school, take over his mother's shop, and care for his parents and Atsa until the former grow beyond his capabilities and the latter finds the courage and stability to strike out on his own. He has no intention of attending college and while he loves wrestling, does not see it as a viable career or hobby to pursue going into the future, partially because he does not see himself as a strong or driven enough competitor at this point to reach for something prestigious such as the Olympics, and partially because he is slowly outgrowing the need for it as an outlet. He still struggles with his temper, and his self-esteem, but with the help of his family, his friends, Bernadette, and his more passive hobbies, he is slowly becoming a more stable, healthy, and happy individual.

Advantages: Ty has been wrestling for five years, and has both the physical conditioning and experience to hold his own in a fight. He knows how to lead and disable equally experienced opponents, and possesses a large advantage over unskilled combatants. Ty has both high levels of endurance and pain tolerance, which may assist in his longevity during the game. He is an experienced hiker and outdoorsman, and knows how to seek shelter and navigate difficult terrain. As a well known wrestler within the school, his reputation may assist him in gathering allies and finding a place within a team, and his loyalty and dependability among the other wrestlers, athletic team members, and rebellious youth could also prove to be an asset.

Disadvantages: Ty has fostered a lot of hostility in Kingman over the years, due both to his family's reputation and his own aggressive actions. Marcus's arrest is still fresh in local memory, and Ty is known to keep close ties with him, which may cause some students to distrust him. While he has tried to make amends for his own actions in some cases, some may be unwilling to forgive him, and some may find him untrustworthy in the context of the game. Ty also has a reactive temper that may be pushed by his new circumstances, causing him to make rash decisions. The relatively recent arrest and imprisonment of Marcus is a sore spot that could be exploited to draw out his temper, and one that many students may know about due to its public nature and mild controversy. Ty's loyalty to his close friends may also prove distracting, as he could be willing to put his life before theirs. As an athlete on a consistent diet and training regime, Ty's body has come to expect certain nutritional values each day, and the sudden lack of resources on the Island may quickly catch up to him and cause debilitating effects. He is also quite stubborn, and may attempt to push himself past his physical limits with hunger, fatigue, and injury, resulting in unnecessary mental and physical stress.

Designated Number: Male student no. 016

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Designated Weapon: Ram Dao sword

Conclusion: B016 has a lot of tools at his disposal, but a lot of enemies. Can you afford to be the dirtiest player in the game? ... Eh. Comparing you to Ric Flair hardly seems appropriate. With a weapon like that... maybe Paul Burchill? You know, just minus the incest part. What was Vince thinking? - Dennis Lourvey

'The above biography is as written by Empress Plush. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Empress Plush

Kills: None

Killed By: Kimiko Kao

Collected Weapons: Ram Dao sword (assigned weapon, to Harold Porter)

Allies: Harold Porter, Clarice Halwood, Eliza Luz, Keith Bauer

Enemies: Conrad Harrod, Brendan Harte

Mid-game Evaluation: Ty awakened in the large group therapy room, and did not hesitate to disrespect the terrorists in his own way by urinating on Danya's survival guide. His friend from wrestling Harold Porter found him, and the two quickly formed an alliance while calmly managing the less than welcome presences of Eliza Luz and Astrid Tate, Ty specifically bemused by their demeanor. He followed Harold when Harold decides to leave.

Tyler was slightly on the heels of Harold as they moved on to the second floor where the solitary confinement cells were, and this made him too late to intervene as Harold had been stabbed by Conrad Harrod misguidedly trying to protect himself and Clarice Halwood. Ty wrestled Conrad to the floor quickly and broke his arm with a joint lock, and might have gone further if Clarice and Harold hadn't stopped him. Shocked he shifted his focus to Harold as Clarice decided to abandon Conrad and the two bring Harold out on a gurney.

Ty tried to keep Harold awake and with them, to no avail, he died by the time they wheeled him out to the bell tower. Clarice argued that they had to put Harold out to sea but the idea was one Ty didn't like, so Clarice backed off. They rested that night and they intended to cross the bridge the next morning, to get away from the asylum. While crossing they encountered Natalie Winters, who approached Clarice and made a bid for alliance, but Ty wanted no part of it. This drew Clarice's ire, especially as Ty continued to remain standoffish as more people appeared in the form of Wayne Cox and she alone was willing to confront them. Ty in turn is aggravated by Clarice's attitude, what he perceives as a lack of gratitude, and he walks away before his temper becomes an issue. Clarice yelled at him as he left, finally directly confronting him with the murder of Conrad.

He wandered alone to the asylum by Day 3, and found Eliza again in the staff lounge, talking to Keith Bauer, Alice Baker, and Sandra Dyer. He was suffering from paranoia by that point and hadn't slept, leaving him weak and barely able to converse with the others until he collapsed from the overexertion. Alice and Lizzie ran to his side, and he recognized Lizzie as she gave him water. Keith then accused him of having gotten into his condition by fighting others, disturbing the peace and drawing the ire of both Lizzie and Ty himself, as Ty openly admitted the events that had led him to that point. The tension mounted to the point that Alice and Sandra fled, but Keith eventually backed down and sullenly apologized. Lizzie pulled out a set of marijuana stuffed smokes, and lit one up while contemplating her intended pursuit of Nancy. Ty was offered one and took it, and related his experience with Conrad and Harold, intending to get both Lizzie and Keith to think very carefully about their next course of action. Lizzie remained insistent on seeking revenge against Nancy and made the intent official, Ty considered it and realized he had little else to live for with the losses of his friends, save an opportunity at pay back. He thus accepted.

Ty expressed his desire to find his girlfriend, Bernadette Thomas, which Keith and Lizzie also agreed to help with. The three of them moved on together after spending some time smoking together to unwind. The next morning, they found themselves at the dock, where Ty mused on what might happen to the killers on the island if a rescue occurred. Keith and Lizzie tried to play more hopeful counterparts to him, but he remained adamant, knowing what his new role demanded of him. He was the one who made the call to walk away, start moving and hunting.

Day 5's announcements revealed that Ty's lover Bernadette Thomas had been murdered. Ty's rage exploded, he cried in furious grief and moved so quickly to the asylum rooftop that he failed to noticed that Lizzie had given them the slip. He announced his intent to murder Brendan Harte, Bern's killer, and that he wouldn't be stopped, Keith could only haplessly follow. They encountered Nadia Riva when they cleared the door that opened to the roof, but without any sort of verbalized encounter. Ty realized finally that Lizzie was gone, and stormed past Keith and back into the asylum to find her.

Ty failed to catch any trace of her, and by the time he reached the shoreline the weight of his losses and failures poured out into a frustrated, agonized scream. That scream drew both Keith and the nearby Coleen Reagan, and he bluntly told them he wasn't okay when they asked. The moment remained fully awkward as Ty struggled with his rage, he managed to ask Coleen for a lead on Lizzie. That left Coleen to admit the truth, that she had seen Lizzie die and had Lizzie's dying message to the two boys. Ty kept his cool as best he could as he began to interrogate Coleen verbally and get her to reveal Lizzie's killers: Isabel Ramirez and an otherwise unidentified 'Lily'. He contemplated revenge, coldly brushing aside Keith's emotional outpouring as the shock of losing an ally set in. He asked for any clues about there whereabouts, Coleen gave them a direction, then she asked about a ring Ty was wearing that was similar to one Bernadette had, it turned out they had been allies a few days prior. Ty was finally overwhelmed with emotion and began to sob, Coleen offered him the location of Bernadette's corpse and Ty gratefully accepted it, wishing Coleen luck before he led Keith off on the grim task to come.

He found her body, reflected on everything she'd meant to him while he prayed for her to say the important, intimate words that she'd always said to him one last time. He had contemplated his own death, but also knew he needed to survive for his family back home. He returned to Keith, moving down the cliffs with Bern's corpse cradled in his arms and silent tears unmasked streaming down his face. He buried her further down the shoreline with an array of stones and the rings they had once bought each other marking the spot, then somberly moved on.

They wandered after that in silence, which Ty eventually tried to break while they checked out the wards of the hospital, he felt uncomfortable with the lack of information about the man who was supposedly his close ally. There still wasn't much for Keith to say even when prompted. They overheard someone, who turned out to be Clarice, after a quiet moment of wariness on both sides they accepted each other once more and apologized and embraced. Ty quietly introduced Ty and Clarice, but they had little to say to each other and Clarice immediately pursued her more important goal, finding Scout Pfeiffer. Ty initially did't know Scout was Clarice's half-sister until she explained when he asked, then he agreed and Ty did as well. But Ty noticed Clarice was hesitant, and he guessed that she was afraid of him despite their having tried to move past the old wounds. That disturbed him more than he could admit to even himself, he excused himself for a moment of air but in reality would not return.

He rested in the bloodied staff lounge, musing to himself in uncomfortable silence. He was found by Kimiko Kao, who he knew was a killer, but he was not bothered by her, even if she almost pulled a gun on him. He offered to leave the room to her, she was okay with sharing it, and they communicated in mostly awkward silence for a while. He acknowledged what she'd done out loud, but also made it clear that he simply could not bring himself to care. He began to consciously acknowledge that the things that had driven him were burning out, he had no energy to even care about the things that supposedly mattered, like returning home, or honoring Bern's memory. The conversation petered out as Ty wondered if he had a home to return to. Kimiko didn't respond, instead she left, quietly shooting Ty as she departed. Ty saw it coming but let it happen, and died quietly.

Post-Game Evaluation: Her memory will live on, my friend. Not on this island where you buried her, but at where you both built a life together before it was tragically cut short. It is there, where you will always have a home to return to. - Boris Petrikov

Memorable Quotes: "That a fact? 'spose there's a first time for everything, then." -- When Lizzie mentions that he and Harold seem trustworthy.

"Didn't know why I did it. Didn't kill 'im, and I couldn't tell you why there neither. (...) Been making up reasons ever since. Dunno if any of 'em are right. But it means I gotta ask...when you find her, is it really gonna matter what she tells ya? (...) Or are you just gonna do whatever you feel like you gotta do, and figure out why you did it later?" -- Ty relating his fighting of Conrad to Lizzie, in terms of her own fixation on Nancy.

"You ever wonder if you still got a home to go back to? (...) Doesn't matter. 'spose we probably won't find out." -- Answering his own question when Kimiko doesn't answer. His last words.

Other/Trivia

 * At one point during the critique process, Ty's profile was so long that it broke the Zetaboards limit for the amount of characters that could be contained in a single post.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contains Tyler, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * Ties That Bound
 * That Which Makes A Good Man Cruel
 * Take your shoes off, friend. You'll be here for awhile.
 * For Those Alone in the Blackest Night

V6 Pregame:
 * Silence is Golden
 * Pool Slingshot
 * For all the people said "Sit down, sit down, you're rockin' the boat."
 * Time To Open Up
 * Goddamn Right, You Should Be Scared Of Me
 * Mad Dewey Dash
 * My Ball And Chain
 * All in the Golden Afternoon

V6:
 * Thirteen Steps
 * By the time you hear the next pop, the funk shall be within you
 * This Is Not My Country, This Is Not What I Believe
 * In A World Of Shit
 * Last Days
 * Drip
 * Lay My Purple on the Grass
 * With Blood and Rage of Crimson Red, Ripped From a Corpse So Freshly Dead
 * Accept Our Ring and Join Our Fight
 * Topic Title
 * I Imagine Death So Much It Feels Just Like A Memory

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Tyler Yazzie. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''

I'm pretty happy with Ty all around. I didn't have a lot of direction with him going into the game, but that ended up working to the benefit of his character in my opinion. It meant that his arc constantly struggling with failure and temptation developed pretty naturally around unplanned events, really lining up more out of luck than anything else. I enjoy that about him looking back, and while I don't feel he's one of my best characters I'm a lot more satisfied with how things played out than I imagined I would be. Shoutouts to Ime, Boogie, Bacon, Grim Wolf, MK, Medic, and Deamon for helping make this train run, Ty wouldn't be anything without the big bounce-off moments they provided ^.^ -EP